Present lighting ballast applications typically use a half bridge driver for controlling power delivery to a gas discharge lamp. For example, a high side switch 10 and low side switch 15, as shown in FIG. 3, may be used in the half bridge configuration to switch at variable frequencies to deliver desired power to the lamp 20. The control for switching the high and low side switches typically requires a somewhat sophisticated control and instruction scheme to provide the appropriate switching frequency and responsiveness to obtain the desired output. A microcontroller and specific value components are often used to supply a switch driver with the appropriate control signals to indicate such parameters as switching frequency, dead time and other desired characteristics for operating the half bridge driver switches. Cost and power considerations often dictate a need for a simple switch driver that does not require sophisticated control signals to drive the half bridge switches.